he true winner of Germany’s much anticipated chancellor’s debate last week wasn’t even present on stage at the event. Millions of voters tuned in to watch a decisive duel between the leaders of the country’s two largest parties, Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats and Martin Schulz of the Social Democrats, but what they witnessed instead was a discussion dominated by the specter of a third, ascendant party that has recently burst onto the political scene: Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing organization led by breakaway members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc…

The CDU was founded after World War II by men and women who vowed to protect the Christian character of the German nation and Europe as a whole, but it has always held an on-again, off-again relationship with white nationalists.

This has been true since even before the beginning. The CDU’s founders, most of whom hailed from the western regions of Germany where Christianity is most historically rooted, originally voted to support Nazism. Far from being a fluke, their alliance was a logical consequence of demographic fears…While Adolf Hitler, prior to coming to power was suspect for many reasons, at least he vowed to protect the nation’s Christian identity from such pernicious elements.

After World War II, when Hitler proved more interested in conquest than Christianity, those same politicians emerged to offer a new vision for German, European, and world politics — this time with a more dependable and powerful partner, the United States of America. Distancing themselves from Nazism, they advocated a “Christian image” of politics based on the values of individual freedom, economic liberty, and cultural openness.